Jim Michalak's Boat Designs

(15January 2011)This issue will be about knockdown recovery. The 1
February issue will continue the topic.

THE BOOK IS OUT!

BOATBUILDING FOR BEGINNERS (AND BEYOND)

is out now, written by me and edited by Garth Battista of Breakaway Books. You might find it at
your bookstore. If not check it out at the....

ON LINE CATALOG OF MY
PLANS...

...which can now be found at Duckworks
Magazine. You order with a shopping cart set up and pay with credit
cards or by Paypal. Then Duckworks sends me an email about the order
and then I send the plans right from me to you.

Left:

It's 10 degrees out and all is covered with ice and snow and Walter
Platzer sends me this photo of his Mixer on a beach in Thailand.
Note the clever use of the surfboard sail.

Contents:

Contact info:

Knockdown Recovery

RECAP....

This is a rerun of the 15sep99 issue which featured a capsize test done
by Herb McLeod on his then new AF3. I want to keep this one up front
because it demonstrates what you need to do when you capsize a sailboat
which is not self righting, but rather is self rescuing. That is you
can get it back upright and going again if you are properly prepared
and if the boat, like AF3, has ample built in flotation or airboxes to
keep it floating high on its side as you recover. A few things I'd like
to point out. 1) Herb's tests were done in very benign conditions and
if you capsize in really bad conditions recovery could be a lot more
difficult or impossible. 2) If you tinker with a design such that you
remove flotation or airboxes or enlarge hatches or move them off
centerline, etc., the recovery system may not work and the boat may
swamp to the point where you cannot recover. 3) If you have a design
with no flotation or airboxes at all, such as most any traditional open
boat, recovery is about impossible because the boat will swamp
completely and be unstable even if it doesn't sink.

And now on to our story...

AF3 CAPSIZE RECOVERY...

Herb McLeod has been sending me some great scans and also some results
of capsizing his AF3, both intentional and unintentional. Early this
summer he wrote:

"Hi Jim:

I now have 14 days of sailing in on the AF3. Alas, no pictures yet of
it sailing on the water for the same reason as ever, no one else around
to take a picture. Most days I am the only boat on the lake. Had one
sail where we traveled 20 miles in one day. We did a 6.5 mile section
that day in 1 hour 10 minutes with the small sail (69 square feet) on a
beam to broad reach (lots of wind). Also managed to turn the AF3 on its
side that same day. The AF3 floated well was easily uprighted, boarded
and bailed out. Everything in the cuddy stayed dry and we managed to
not lose any of our gear. But that is not what I am writing about....."

That whetted my appetite and I emailed for more info about the capsize.

"I'd like to hear a bit more about the AF3 capsize. In particular:
About what angle did it go over?"

"I do not know because we were not sailing it at the time. We were both
standing on the cuddy deck fiddeling with the sail in a good blow and
it went over real fast. We have regularly sailed the hull at up to 20
degrees of heel and it does not feel unstable although I like it best
at 10 degrees of heal. I have an inclinometer on the boat(overkill I
know) so I know that the angle of heel is a real measurement not a
guess. When sailing I had one puff that almost caused a knockdown
because I had accidently cleated the main sheet. What happened is he
boat healed over dramatically and the sail depowered enough that
equilibrium was reached and I was able to uncleat the sheet in time to
prevent a capsize. Unfortuantly I did not look at the inclinometer, but
I was busy at the time.

" How did you right the boat? (Did you use the leeboard?)"

"Gord the fellow I was sailing with uprighted the boat while I swam off
after our cooler that was quickly blowing away. The water was shallow
so he was standing on the bottom. His comment after was that he was
amazed at how easily the boat came back up. The second set of plans for
the AF3 that I purchased was for Gord as after that experience he was
convinced that he wanted to build himself an AF3 this winter. We will
see..."

"How did you reboard the boat?"

"I climbed on from the stern. I have a small step on the stern that
also doubles as a support for my mast cradle. Iput my hands on the
stern deck and placed my foot on the step and climbed on board. I must
take a photo of this step and send it to you. With the step it was easy
to reboard and I could walk around in the cockpit with the water in it
and bail it out. Gord then reboarded over the side, which was much more
difficult and his choice not mine."

"What I will have to do the next time I am out sailing will be to dump
the boat in deep water while watching the inclinometer and get you an
answer. The water should be warm this week as it is again over 30C
today. Unreal for us as it is usually cool, no one has air conditioning
here. We were at a folk festival today but came home as it was too hot.

At summer's end he wrote:

"Hello Jim:

I was glad that I caught you in the other night. It was good to talk to
you after so many emails.

I did get out "sailing" this Sunday. I rolled the AF3 solo both ways in
deep water. The AF3 seemed stable to well over 30 degrees and I had the
distinct feeling that I could have pushed it back upright until the
point was reached that the water started to come over the combing of
the cockpit. I had my large sail on the boat at the time of the test
(103 square feet, 24-foot mast). Winds were almost non-existent. When
it was rolled with the leeboard down in the water righting the boat was
an easy task as all I had to do was put light pressure on the board.
When the leeboard was up out of the water I "walked" with my hands
along the chine log (it makes a good grip) to the leeboard and then
pulled on the board to pop the boat upright. The comment from the yacht
club spectators on the dock was that it came up too easy. They wanted
to see me struggle for a while. When righted the boat had 6" on water
in the cockpit against the center bulkhead. I pulled myself on board
via the stern. I found it easiest to board directly in the middle of
the stern because the boat would tend to wallow with the water in the
cockpit if I was off to one side or the other. I found turning the
rudder 90 degrees and using it as a hand hold helped to reboard. For
those with limited arm strength a step on the rudder or a rope step on
the stern near the midline would be a great help for reboarding. My son
was taking photos I hope some of them turned out. Also asked another
boat to take a few photos while sailing maybe we will get you a picture
of the AF3 sailing.

I am now off for a week to Jasper Alberta with my son for some hiking
and canoeing.

Herb"

WHAT I THINK IT ALL MEANS....

Herb McLeod seems to be the most energetic and organized person I've
met.

The scenery of his sailing lake is certainly picture book beautiful. He
has warned me that the mosquitoes don't show in the photos.

The capsize with two men on the cuddy deck is no surprise. The boat was
not designed for that. In fact the idea behind the slot top cabin is to
do all sail handling from inside the slot. You can do that if the
snotter attachment is kept within reach of a person with his feet on
the boat's bottom. I suspect the high snotter attachment Herb is using
is to gain more sail efficiciency. That is true enough but after having
snotter tackles fail in one way or another I learned to keep the them
well within reach.

Actually the AF3 capsize seems very similar to my experiences with
capsizing my old Jinni. Both boats capsize well before they take water
over the side. Jinni had less flotation and I think took on more water.
I was able to reboard Jinni over the side. It had lower sides and there
seemed to be a trick to rolling over the side just as the boat was
rolling upright. Then I had to be very careful to not recapsize the
boat because of the sloshing cockpit water. And like AF3, Jinni
couldn't quite roll upright until I put some weight on the leeboard.
The Jinni had three skid/stiffeners on its bottom which I used as a
toehold to regain the capsized boat in the same way that Herb used the
AF3 external chines as a finger hold. I may add some similar skids to
the AF3 drawings.

Herb looks to have gone through all his tests without disturbing any
gear because he had it well stowed. Very important.

DarcyBryn

DARCYBRYN, Cabin Sailboat, 15' X 6', 800 pounds empty

Darcy Bryn is the new name of the "Billsboat" project that was
discussed here a while back (see the November 2009 back issues). The
idea was for a solo cruiser with good rough water capabilities. The
issue of self righting was explored rather deeply back then. The
trouble centers around the fact that a small boat like this can need
ballast similar to a larger boat because the critical weight that
needs to be counteracted can be that of the crew, and that doesn't
scale down with the boat. The number you see all the time for ballast
in a small cabin boat is 500 pounds. Then for a small boat the
problem becomes getting enough buoyancy in a short hull to just deal
with the weight of it all, etc. You usually end up with a boat that
sits quite deep in the water both to get the ballast down low and to
get the hull volume required to float the ballast. And after you've
used a boat that floats in 3" of water you will have little interest
in one that grounds out in 18" of water and that is about how it
goes.

Darcy Bryn is a compromise here because the builder didn't really
want the above solution. So what you have on the drawing is 200
pounds of lead bolted to the bottom of the hull, enough we figured to
right the boat from a knockdown as long as the crew has jumped in the
water and thus removed his weight from the capsize equation. Then the
boat will right on its own and should be free from swamping of any
sort since she is decked over all the way. Then the skipper needs to
get back up and in somehow. Not always easy and you must be prepared
for this both with a ladder of some sort that you can grab while
swimming, and also with the sail's sheets released so the boat won't
sail away without you, which many rigs like this yawl rig can and
will do. If it sounds too risky then you might add another 300 pounds
of lead and hopefully it will self right with you still on the deck.
If this all sounds pretty wild I can tell you I know of two Bolger
box cruisers that behaved exactly this way in real knockdowns. Boat
tipped and was stable on its side, crew jumped in the water, boat
righted and crew reboarded. I think Darcy draws about 12" of water at
full weight partly because the ballast extends about 3" below the
bottom.

To make the hull take rough water I shaped it with multichines and a
pointy bow. It is pretty curvy. The multichines reduce the internal
volume and the pointy bow pushed the effective cabin back to the
point where a long floor sleep space is acquired by having the
sleeper's feet extend past the main bulkhead and under the aft deck.
But even with the pointy bow she may not be too comfortable sleeping
anchored in open water.

The rig comes right off a Mikesboat because Bill already has a
Mikesboat. It looks a bit large on the drawing but lug sails can reef
nicely and quickly with practice. The mast is mounted on a tabernacle
but whether it is safe to swing the mast up while afloat is a good
question, at least I don't think it can be done safely by standing on
the deck. Maybe by standing in the front hatch with your feet on the
floor. Best done with the boat on the trailer or beached, I'd say.

Well, I guess I've given you all the negative warnings. In the end it
might be a tough little boat capable of staying out in the rough
stuff after everyone else has given up. With a cozy cabin.

Prototype News

Some of you may know that in addition to the one buck catalog
which now contains 20 "done" boats, I offer another catalog of 20
unbuilt prototypes. The buck catalog has on its last page a list
and brief description of the boats currently in the Catalog of
Prototypes. That catalog also contains some articles that I wrote
for Messing About In Boats and Boatbuilder magazines. The Catalog
of Prototypes costs $3. The both together amount to 50 pages for
$4, an offer you may have seen in Woodenboat ads. Payment must be
in US funds. The banks here won't accept anything else. (I've got
a little stash of foreign currency that I can admire but not
spend.) I'm way too small for credit cards.

I think David Hahn's Out West Picara is the winner of the Picara
race. Shown here on its first sail except there was no wind.
Hopefully more later. (Not sure if a polytarp sail is suitable
for a boat this heavy.

Here is a Musicbox2 I heard about through the grapevine.

This is Ted Arkey's Jukebox2 down in Sydney. Shown with the
"ketchooner" rig, featuring his own polytarp sails, that is shown
on the plans. Should have a sailing report soon.

And the Vole in New York is Garth Battista's of
www.breakawaybooks.com, printer of my book and Max's old outboard
book and many other fine sports books. Beautiful job! Garth is
using a small lug rig for sail, not the sharpie sprit sail shown
on the plans, so I will continue to carry the design as a
prototype boat. But he has used it extensively on his Bahamas
trip towed behind his Cormorant. Sort of like having a compact
car towed behind an RV.

And a Deansbox seen in Texas:

The prototype Twister gets a test sail with three grown men, a
big dog and and big motor with its lower unit down. Hmmmmm.....

Jackie and Mike Monies of Sail Oklahoma have two Catboxes
underway....

Tom Wolf has completed the first Toon2 that I know of and was
waiting for some good testing weather...